Harold R. Boulware Sr. (March 1, 1913 - January 27, 1983) was a civil rights attorney and judge in the United States. He was chief attorney for the NAACP in South Carolina. He was involved in cases challenging segregation in school busing and the Democrat Party's whites only primaries in South Carolina. His cases included

Briggs v. Elliott ''Briggs v. Elliott'', 342 U.S. 350 (1952), on appeal from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, challenged school segregation in Summerton, South Carolina. It was the first of the five cases combined into ''Brown ...

, Brown v. Board, and Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County. He became the first African-American appointed as an Associate Judge for the Columbia Municipal Court in August 1969 and served until 1974 when he became a judge in the Richland County Judicial System. Boulware was born in

Irmo, South Carolina Irmo () is a town in Lexington County, South Carolina, Lexington and Richland County, South Carolina, Richland counties, South Carolina, United States, and a suburb of Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia. It is part of the Columbia Columbia, South ...

in 1913. The son of Robert Walter and Mabel Hughes Boulware, his father was Dean of Harbison Agricultural Institute in Irmo where his mother taught music. He graduated from Harbison Agricultural Institute,

Johnson C. Smith University Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU) is a private historically black university in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SAC ...

in Charlotte, North Carolina, and

Howard University Law School Howard University School of Law (Howard Law or HUSL) is the law school of Howard University, a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is one of the oldest law schools in the country and the old ...

in Washington D.C. He was mentored by

Thurgood Marshall Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme C ...

and Charles Houston. He passed the South Caroline bar examination and was licensed in 1940. He sued on behalf of a black applicant to the University of South Carolina's law school leading to the establishment of a law school for blacks at

South Carolina State South Carolina State University (SCSU or SC State) is a public, historically black, land-grant university in Orangeburg, South Carolina. It is the only public, historically black land-grant research university in South Carolina, is a member o ...

. He challenged unequal pay for black teachers. He worked on the brief for the Gebhart v. Belton case. A 1947 letter he wrote about a school busing case survives. He is buried at Upper Pine Grove Cemetery in

. In 2019 the

South Carolina House of Representatives The South Carolina House of Representatives is the lower house of the South Carolina General Assembly. It consists of 124 representatives elected to two-year terms at the same time as U.S. congressional elections. Unlike many legislatures, seatin ...

adopted a resolution honoring him.

References

{{Reflist 1913 births 1983 deaths American judges